Fear of Flying

So I have been on a lot of airplanes recently. Some small, some big.

On a recent flight from Athens to Zurich the female pilot started speaking as we trundled along the bumpy runway readying ourselves for take-off. She calmly welcomed us on-board, gave us the potted highlights of the routing. Not that this matters one jot, it’s not like it’s an open top bus tour. In my experience, the sky looks pretty similar wherever you are. She then finished off with the important things; the weather and the flying conditions.

‘First hour of the flight will be smooth and the second hour will be bumpy as fuck. Cabin crew best you get the drinks served early….’ she said

Ok, I haven’t quoted her verbatim here - but this is what I heard. 

And of course as usual I found myself tensing up. I found myself shifting slightly in my seat and trying to look nonchalant as I glanced around the cabin to see if anyone else had heard what she just said. 

Apparently not, conversations carried on, sleep continued and the cabin crew showed how to add extra air into the lifejacket through the rubber mouthpiece.

Best way to rid yourself of an anxiety? Face up to it and do it over and over again. Not with flying it would seem.

I fly on average once a week, sometimes more, sometimes less but this would be a reasonable guess at an average. That’s a lot of planes in a year. So if I do a rough calculation over the last five years and include the trips I know I do monthly and add some guestimate for the rest I would estimate I have flown over 500 times in the last five years. Which I think is a lot. I know people who fly more, and lots who fly less.

So 500 times and not one crash. 

A couple of dodgy landings, a lot of delays and one aborted take-off but apart from these I have managed a 100% safety record. Which is pretty reassuring.

So why is it when the pilot mentions some ‘chop’, if he hints at some ‘bumpiness’ ahead or the seatbelt sign pings on at cruising altitude for no apparent reason do I still tense up and find my palms starting to get slippery? It defies all rational logic.

True to her word, and with an uncanny Swiss preciseness as soon as we reached the hour point in our flight the plane lurched and dropped like a stone. I had a wing seat and watched with mild terror as the wing flapped up and down like a duck attempting take off from a lake. 

The heavy lump of metal bumped, banged and made some unhealthy metal on metal grinding sounds as we flew through a snowstorm which was dumping meters of the white stuff over the Austrian alps.

I gripped on and tried to continue the conversation I had been having with the German passenger sat next to me. Wasn’t easy.

But he just carried on as if nothing was happening. ‘Ya Bayern are unstoppable’. He was ignoring the fact that we were all going to die. 

‘England football has worsened over the last few years’. He didn’t seem to notice the absolute certainty that the plane was seconds away from breaking into bits ten miles up. 

‘What do you think of Basel?’

I tried to joke about the current predicament we were both in. He just nodded ignoring me and continued. 

‘Bastian Schweinsteiger, probably one of the best midfielder I have ever seen.’

The conversation ended right at the point we emerged with one final heavy bump but safely through the dark grey clouds and a white alpine mountainous vista broke into view. 

Ten minutes to landing, plenty of time for my clothes to dry out.

It is irrational, totally irrational. I know, or rather knew, at the time the plane wasn’t going to break up. I have watched every documentary on the subject, read every statistic available but still it’s a rare occasion that I feel totally relaxed at cruising altitude.

I dislike mosquitoes, not scared of them just dislike them a lot. So consequently I quite like spiders – the enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that. I do however know lots of people who are terrified of them. A few years back in Australia I stopped for some reason on a forest track to look around, as I did so I noticed a spider in front of my face. One as big as my face. It was close enough to kiss. Had I not stopped it would have wrapped itself around my face like the alien out of that movie. It didn’t scare me, I just walked around its sail sized web and carried on. 

Other people would have wet themselves and run out of the forest screaming.

The human brain isn’t rational. In fact I would go as far as to say it’s very very irrational. Love, greed, fear, happiness, ambition, horoscopes and magic – planet earth is definitely not Vulcan.

Neither is the Crimea and based on the strong worded rhetoric coming from the West it also seems we are making irrational threats without really thinking through the consequences. Or if we are we must be thinking they are empty threats, the type which are made knowing they wont do it. Will they?

The cold war which lasted from WW2 up until 1989 was without any shadow of a doubt the most dangerous period in human history. On more than one occasion we managed to reach a Mexican standoff with the future of world at stake and a sweaty finger hovering over a big red button.

Who blinks first?

Yes, Russia invading Crimea is a bad thing. No doubt about this. Yes, Russia probably has imperial expansionist thoughts and is probably using this as an excuse to further this cause. Yes, the hurriedly put together referendum was probably illegal. 

I fully understand the concern and the outrage in Kiev, London and Washington however are we really in a position to piss off Russia and risk the start of a second cold war.

Nuclear disarmament has been going on for a while however let’s not kid ourselves, there are still enough missiles pointing West and East to mutually assure destruction within the blink of an eye.

Trade is another thing. The oil supplies from Russia through the Ukraine are not as important as they might have been five years ago but they are still very important. Trade going the other way satisfying the burgeoning consumer demand in Russia is not insignificant either. Russia is as important to the west as the west is important to Russia.

Its just too much to risk to start imposing sanctions or worse.

On the face of it there seems to be a big divide in the Ukraine, those for and those against Russia. Given what I have read over the last month or so it appears the Crimean region is very sympathetic towards Moscow and the rest less so. The dodgy referendum seems to support this and Moscow has acted accordingly to ‘protect the Russian speaking citizens there’.

So given everything which is at risk here, isn’t there another approach which we could or should be following?

Couldn’t we determine what exactly the citizens of the Crimean peninsula actually really want and take their lead. Self determination and all that. If they want to be conjoined with Russia then thats their choice. 

If Kiev doesn’t like it then how different will this be if Scotland votes yes this September? I guarantee Westminster wont like that either but there is very little they will be able to do about it.

I understand the way we have been strong armed into reaching this point is not the right way to go about things but with the stakes so high surely we can accept it and move on.

Russia is a bully this is obvious. Putin is a bully as well but this is not 1938, we are not facing an army of national socialists and Crimea is definitely not Poland.

My suggestion would be to shut the career politicians up, watching William Hague talk tough against Russia just makes me wince. Ratchet down the rhetoric and get into some serious discussions with them.

If the Crimean people want to be a Russian state then who are we to say otherwise? This is far from capitulating in the face of aggression, its common sense especially given the current situation.

Have another referendum. A proper, internationally monitored one and go with the result. Wouldn’t that allow everyone to back down and keep face?

Anyway just a suggestion - who am I to have an opinion on such matters? Might not be sensible, might not be acceptable.

And given how my brain works ten miles up is most likely not even rational but in my simplistic view it seems far more palatable than what could be the alternative.